According to the two firms, a detailed feasibility study for the proposed export facility on Lelu Island south of Prince Rupert, B.C., is now complete and the project is moving into a design and engineering phase.

Progress president and CEO Michael Culbert announced the project will officially be named the Pacific Northwest LNG.

The project will include two liquefaction plants when initially constructed, with the option to add a third.

The LNG throughput is currently designed for about 3.8-million tonnes per year for each liquefaction plant, according to the two firms, but Petronas says that capacity would increase by about 60 per cent to six-million tonnes if its proposed takeover of Progress is approved.

If the project proceeds, the estimated investment in the LNG export facility is expected to be between $9- and $11-billion, according to Progress and Petronas.

The construction phase would generate up to 3,500 jobs and the long-term operations of the facility would result in 200 to 300 direct jobs.

The community of Moricetown Band is about to sign an agreement with Pacific Trail Pipelines under their First Nations Limited Partnership group. The agreement is set to be signed this weekend in Vancouver.

The reason they want to sign this agreement in Vancouver is because an overwhelming amount of community members showed up at the last community meeting and voiced their opposition to having any pipelines come through our lands.

The agreement gives the Moricetown Band & PTP the rights (via approval from the BC gov’t) to set up a gate at the Unist’ot’en camp and manage traffic coming into this territory. Continue reading →

Like this:

On July 22, 2014, the Unist’ot’en camp evicted a TransCanada crew working on the Coastal Gaslink pipeline within their territories in northern BC. If caught tresspassing again, TransCanada’s equipment will be confiscated.

Six Nation members protest an integrity dig for Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline in North Dumfries. (Submitted)

Protesters from Six Nations and other parts of southwestern Ontario stopped work at a dig on a portion of the Line 9 pipeline in North Dumfries Thursday morning.

According to a statement from protesters, a group marched onto a work site east of Highway 24 near the Grand River between Cambridge and Brantford around 10 a.m. Thursday. They say Enbridge’s employees are working without consent or consultation on land that is on Haudenosaunee territory.

“We’re against the pipeline, the construction, the bitumen tarsands oil running through this pipeline running across the Grand River territory… without proper consultation [with] our people,” said Missy Elliot, a Six Nations spokesperson.

The dig site is just north of Beverly Court and East of Highway 24 in North Dumfries between Cambridge and Brantford. (Google)

Elliot said Six Nations was not consulted in advance of the construction and they only became aware of the dig when information pamphlets were delivered to area residents.

“They are supposed to consult and accommodate indigenous people,” said Elliot.

“Pamphlets in the mail are not proper consultation. Not sitting with us at the table… is not proper consultation.”

Protesters at the site said Enbridge staff left the area peacefully with their heavy equipment after speaking with protest members and local police.

Janice Lee, who came from Kitchener to show support for the protest group, said members of Six Nations initially approached Enbridge staff and told them they were on treaty territory without consultation and asked them to leave.

“They’ve left but it seems like they keep sending people back and forth to check on us,” added Lee.

Despite the claim by Six Nations that they were not properly consulted, Enbridge spokesperson Graham White told CBC that the company had met with representatives of Six Nations and that Thursday’s work was part of a routine inspection of the pipeline.

“When we talk about integrity digs this is one of the many things we are doing to ensure the safety of this line,” said White.

“We go down and at minimum remove the coating and do a visual inspection and other in field inspections of the pipe and take any measures necessary to repair that or maintain that pipe to a level of very good integrity.”

White added hundreds of similar digs have been completed along the pipeline between Sarnia and Montreal.

In March, the NEB approved a request from Enbridge to reverse the flow and increase the capacity of the controversial Line 9 pipeline that has been running between southern Ontario and Montreal for years.

Line 9 originally shuttled oil from Sarnia, Ont., to Montreal, but was reversed in the late 1990s in response to market conditions to pump imported crude westward. Enbridge now wants to flow oil back eastwards to service refineries in Ontario and Quebec.

It plans to move 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the line, a rise from the current 240,000 barrels, with no increase in pressure.

Opponents argue the Line 9 plan puts communities at risk, threatens water supplies and could endanger vulnerable species in ecologically sensitive areas.

Members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation community are vowing to maintain their blockade following Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Ontario has the right to issue licences for logging on the group’s treaty lands.

In a 7-0 ruling released Friday, the high court dismissed the Keewatin appeal, ruling that Ontario has the right to “take up” lands in the treaty area in northwestern Ontario near Kenora, under provisions in Canada’s Constitution, and the interpretation of the treaty.

“Ontario and only Ontario has the power to take up lands under Treaty 3,” the Supreme Court said in its ruling, in a case that hinged on jurisdictional issues. Continue reading →